GRAND CENTER — It was about 300 at-bats ago center fielder Rick Ankiel made his debut as a major-league outfielder, and tonight’s home run was his 18th since he made his return on August 9, 2007.  Track that statistics from that day forward and Ankiel ranks with baseball’s best sluggers — and one sudden star coming to town this week — in such numbers as homers, RBIs and slugging.

From August 9 until the start of…

PITTSBURGH — Called High-A Palm Beach’s manager Gaylen Pitts the other day for another assignment and after running through a list of specific players in his lineup I asked who else has stood out.

“Tyler Henley,” he said. “Leadoff guy. He’s been a bit of everything for us.”

Fast forward to Wednesday morning and I’m checking out the box score of the Palm Beach Cardinals and sure enough, there was Henley, doing a big bit of one thing — against a…

TOWER GROVE — Rick Hummel’s look at how Milwaukee has adopted the “Crazy 8″ lineup to such success that catcher Jason Kendall is leading the league in hitting jogged my memory about a email received earlier Tuesday. This one comes from ACTA Sports, the publishing house of Bill James and others, and it’s John Dewan’s “Stat of the Week.” This week’s topic:

Whose batting slot is the best in baseball thus far?

Using on-base-percentage-plus-slugging (OPS), Dewan ranks the best…

GRAND CENTER — Houston’s Michael Bourn just pulled off a theft on Yadier Molina by stealing second in the first inning there at Minute Maid Park. That allows for an elaboration on Rick Hummel’s note in this morning’s paper. In what was a P-D team effort, columnist Bernie Miklasz helped us research what it meant for Molina to get the 20th pick off of his career Sunday against Washington.

Since Molina became the everyday starter at catcher, here…

GRAND CENTER — Settling in here at the FSN Midwest studios (read: Channel 9), and an early-game excerise, courtesy of producer Max Leinwand, is inspired by the 75th anniversary of prohibition’s repeal. What Major League Baseball rule, Leinwand wonders, should be repealed. Soberly, of course.

Some initial suggestions:

• The designated hitter.
• The All-Star Game determining home-field advantage in World Series.
• The Division Series being a best-of-five.

Any others? Tal’s Hill, maybe?

One that has been discussed on the blog and around the…

The major league team may have left Friday morning — and taken the Double-A team with it — but most of the Cardinals’ minor leaguers remained in Florida for the weekend. They’re still playing. Which means there are still Vuch Reports coming.

Below are the complete reports from Friday’s scrimmages, and after them are the highlights from the two previous days — Vuch Reports that slipped through the cracks of packing, traveling and other writing. The minor league…

JUPITER, Fla. — The major-league season is, oh, not yet two innings old as I start to write this, but all around Roger Dean Stadium and the Cardinals’ complex there’s a quickening of the pace.

The big-league Cardinals are settling into the roster they’ll take north — the brass is having a meeting with the coaches this morning — and the minor leaguers are making their final pitches for a spot on the highest level possible. On Monday,…

THE GLADES — Talk about multi-tasking. As only a Hall of Famer can, Rick Hummel is driving us across central Florida, while making a radio appearance (unless, that is, he has friends who call him to breakdown the option rules on Anthony Reyes and the backhand plays of Cesar Izturis). I have the laptop out and am cranking away, tethered even this far off the Interstate to the Internet.

This kind of coverage takes creativity.

While making the…

JUPITER, Fla. — The Cardinals raced the rain by rescheduling their minor league games for early Saturday morning. They had more than quick games, they made quick work of the Marlins’ affiliates and swept all five games.

Nobody worked quicker or more effectively than Mitchell Boggs. The righthander came to spring training as one of the young pitchers the organization wanted to get a look at in a big-league setting. He was also one of…

JUPITER, Fla. — The Cardinals held what’s called a “Camp Day” in these parts, squaring off their minor-league affiliates against each other for quick scrimmages and an early day. The setting may have changed and the competition may be friendly, but the familiar names keep coming up in the daily Vuch Report.

But first some history.

The Vuch Report is a daily culling of statistics and performances from the minor-league games. While most of the attention is…